Pages

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Being
born a sardar comes with some lifetime benefits. You never have to think twice before
planning a foreign holiday as you always have a family of relatives staying in
each continent of the world; barring Antarctica, actually. But it’s ok. Don’t
take it literally. More than ninety nine percent of the Manmeets & Kuljeets
forget about this continent after passing 9th grade, and the
remaining one percent of the Montek Singh Ahluwalias know that Antarctica is
too chilled out already, and doesn’t require a visit from the Singh clan to
make it cool.

Being
a sardar, you can wear magenta party shirts to your office and be sure that no
one will judge you. Hell, being a sardar you don’t even care if someone does. You
can be sure to land up with a sardarni who’s had guys ogling her through school
and college. You can get married to her on any friggin’ Sunday. And well, on
any given Sunday, you can be sure to wake up to a breakfast of aaloo ke paranthe, a lunch of rajma chawal, and a dinner of dadaji ka special chicken. You can then rub
all the oil off your hands on to your beard, give it a little shine, and burp
your signature Punjabi shankh to mark
the end of a meal.

You
can be sure of your career. You can easily pick and choose from being a
property dealer, having a car accessories shop in Karol Bagh, or if you’re one
of those with exceptional entrepreneurial skills, you can open a fancy
restaurant in Rajouri and call it Punjabi by Nature, if you want. Or if all
else fails (though I doubt anything does when done by a sardar), you can give a
funky shape to your beard, glue a strip of diamonds on your patka, and bruaaah your way to stardom.

You
can party in your ghar ki lawn by
opening a few bottles of whisky, popping namkeen
kaju, and gorging on mummy kespecial chicken tikke. Or if it’s one of
those non-non-veg days, you can dance around a bonfire, pop some popcorn (haha,
paaji), eat lots of gudh wali patti and call it Lohri, if
you want. You can raise your hands up without needing any khote da puttar Eminem to ask you to do so, and do Gangnam with
your legs to the dhol beats. When a
Delhi snob points out that you’re doing a Gangnam, you can say: “Paaji, gaane nu gangnam bulaande ho? Haha,
bade mazaaki ho!” and then just make funny hand movements with half your fingers
folded to show that you can rap, before he can even pull a confused face.

Being
a sardar, you literally know how to let your hair loose. You can untie your
mane every weekend; shampoo it with peeley
wala Sunsilk, bask in the magnificence of letting it sun-dry while reading
HT City Sunday Edition, and greeting your neighbors with “Hor ji? Wadhiya?” from your balcony. You can enjoy a Simco free day
and let only your leg hair tell the neighborhood kids that it is sardarji uncle
and not some hot girl that they are looking at from behind.

You
can be sure of having not just matching belts and shoes, but also matching
shirts, ties and turbans. You can be sure of never running out of perfume and deodorants.
You can be sure of having more personal care products than the Hindu girl you
have a crush on. You can be sure of never needing a moisturizer, thanks to the
frequent trips to the gurdwara. You can be sure of being ready for a party at
short notice by using Garnier Ultra Strong gel in place of Simco, and avoiding
the hassle of tying a handkerchief around your face.

Being
a sardar, you can be sure of never crying when drunk. You can narrate any
incident from your day without even using the names Santa and Banta, and be
sure that it will crack not just your friends up, but also ten other people
passing you by at that moment. You can send your kid to school and be sure that
he will tell his classmates that Santa Claus looks like his dadaji. You can give him the best
Christmas present by telling him that he’ll turn into Mr. Claus one day; and be
sure of getting a better Christmas present back when he says: “Papa, mennu Santa ni ban-na, mennu te twaade
vargah ban-na hai.” You can be sure to not shed a happy tear after that,
but take your family out for a celebratory dinner to Pind Balluchi.

Being
a sardar, you can find a brother, a paaji,
anywhere that you go. You can be sure of enjoying food cooked with love by one
of your unknown relatives at a local gurdwara. You can be sure that no guest
ever leaves your house without wanting to use your toilet at least once to make
space for more snacks. You can be sure to never expect someone to call you his “best
friend” before you do something for him that he calls a favor. But you can
still never be sure about how many of those people would love to call you not
just their best friend but a brother.

Barney
Stinson may be awesome, but he’s still not what the world calls a sardar. I’m
just so proud of being born a Punjabi, because being Punjabi is almost being
half a sardar.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

I
try to pull a Ranbir Kapoor from Anjaana Anjaani, who stands resting his back
against the wall. The office workload and the pseudo post breakup grimace on my
face; I act it out perfectly while in the shower, trying to look as serious as
Alok Nath with four widowed daughters. I let the water pour on my head and
trickle down my cheeks to mask the tears which I wish I could act well enough
to secrete naturally from my eyes. My heart does a bit of a jig inside, telling
itself that its abode is a brilliant actor. I try hard to not let the scene
break, and enjoy the beauty of an act like that in a hot shower on a winter
morning. With some experience in theatre, one tends to push it further and
overact a bit. So, I decide to tilt my head further back into the wall and then
crouch down silently, gliding my spine on the bathroom tiles to my way down.
That is the plan. Ah, let’s do it! And as soon as my head decides to obey my
command and places the tip, the little circle that makes a whirlpool of hair on
my scalp, against the wet tile, I feel a tender cold touch on my head. It’s a
nice cold feeling. I begin to wonder why I never experienced it before. I wonder
why I couldn’t feel it at the lower back of my head when it was touching the
bathroom wall for the past few minutes. Oh wait! The scene breaks due to a
brilliant realization right in the middle of a Bathroom Oscar winning
performance.

I
immediately move away from the edge of the bathroom, and my fingers run to the
top of my head. They pat around violently, in a state of confusion, stomping
the finger tips on my scalp trying to imitate Sunny Deol’s foot movements in
the song where he does this pulling out a hand-pump from the ground step.
(Which song was that?) I throw a towel on my head, rub it furiously and then
reveal my dried hair to the mirror. I’ve had a receded hairline for quite some
time now, but I don’t think one can look at the back of my head and point out
that I’m balding. Y’know, how Saif’s hair has styled itself since Race hit the theatres
some four years back. But my fingers suddenly feel cooler on the scalp, right
on the tip of my head. I figured how I didn’t wish to try crazy hairstyles like
Akshay Khanna to hide the soon to appear bald spots, so a trip to the barber was
planned. “I’ll keep my hair cropped short. Short is neat. It’s neat in a suit,
nasty in a leather jacket.” *chewing on a twig smirk, baby doll*

I
walk into the barber shop and see the seats occupied. I really hope that the
guy who I like getting my hair cut from gets free before the other two hair
dressers. I always feel a little sad when put in a situation where I’m invited
to a chair, but have to heartlessly deny the offer ‘cuz I don’t want to be
attended to by the not so experienced barber. In my defense, whenever I’ve
thought of being a nice guy and giving the youngest barber a chance to cut my
hair, the session has always ended with me wanting to ask him if even his
sister would ever think of dating someone whose hair has been cut like that.

I
decide to wait on the couch and flip through all the pictures in the Filmfare
and Stardust lying on the table in front of me before it’s time for my turn. Deciding
on the speed at which one flips pages is a gamble, here. I don’t want to be
done with looking at just half a magazine till I’m called for my turn; nor do I
want to finish flipping through them too early. It’s just like rationing the
portion of subzi on your plate to
match with the morsels of rotis on
your platter. (It’s a bloody middle
class analogy, really. But whatever, I do it all the time.) I try to read an
article in the magazine, and call it a coincidence if you may; any article that
interests me is next to a full page lingerie ad. Every effing time! Now, it’s
ok. I’m at a place full of men. No one’s gonna judge me even if that page is
blaring into everyone’s faces right in the middle of the “saloon”. All the
uncles sitting around will probably thank me for holding on to that page for
that long. “Ah, it’s all chill. Read the interview anyway”, I tell myself. And
then in a minute, I start to feel really awkward about the tubelight reflecting
on the glossy paper with a picture of a red laced undergarment. “Fudge, is it weird that
I’m still reading this?”… “Um, I think I’ll just turn the page.”… “Uh, no. I
think people know I’m grown up enough to be ok with this. Let’s just read on.”…
“Fudge it, I’m turning the page”.

I’m
soon called by the guy who normally cuts my hair, and I thank my stars for not
putting me in the I’m-not-getting-a-haircut-from-you situation today. I sit on
the chair and he puts the blue cloak around me. It’s not one of those fancy
barber cloaks that has a velcro collar. It’s like one of those cheap polyester
bed sheets that he’ll furl in the air like a matador after the haircut, and
make hair rain in the room. He knots it around my neck, uses his spray gun to
wet my hair and then asks how I’d want it cut. It’s funny how he asks that
every time, when I’m not someone who has ordered for a mullet one time and a mohawk the next
time in the past seven years of letting him cut my hair. So I tell him to
shorten my side-burns while keeping their volume intact, knowing well enough
that he’ll crop the hair around my ears really short again. “Baal chhote kar dena”, I tell him, also
specifying that I want it short enough to not be combed and long enough for it
to not stand like baby porcupine spines on my head.

He
starts snipping, while watching either Zee Cinema or Star Cricket. I can tell
from knowing him through all these years that he is a big fan of Govinda and
Ajay Devgn. It kind of scares me at times, since these are the only two actors
whose movies’ rights Zee Cinema can afford to buy. And then there’s a bit of a Govinda
look alike in Sehwag, too. It scares me ‘cuz then he gets distracted, running
his fingers through the holes on the scissors, while keeping his eyes fixed on
the TV screen. My fear vanishes in less than fifteen seconds, when I start
finding the dialogues interesting and try to look at the television set from
the mirror in front of me. What follows is a push of his hand on my head to
tilt and get the right angle, countered by the thrust of my head against his
hand so that I can enjoy a few minutes of a ‘90s Govinda starrer through the
corner of my eyes.

He
finally stops and asks me if I think the length of the hair is fine. I just nod
in silence, knowing that no matter how good or bad a job he does of cutting my
hair, it’s all eventually in the hands of mother nature. He holds up a mirror
at the back of my head and I see my hair thinning. It breaks my heart a little
too much and I ask, “Baal kam ho gaye na?”
He replies like a Haryanvi Shahrukh to Preity Zinta in Kal Ho Naa Ho, saying
that it’s all gonna be fine. He gives me a nice head massage to relieve the
tension off, knowing that I’ll tip him extra for that. I gladly get up after
having let my head be treated like a percussion instrument, and pay him a
little extra with a smile.

It’s
effing gay how towards the end, this is sounding more like some deep connection
I have developed with my barber over a haircut, and less about my thinning
hair. But anyway, it’s a sign of growing up isn’t it? Pessimists call it
ageing. But, growing up it is, and I think I’ll let my new hairstyle grow on
me. (Bad, bad pun.)

Image Source: ihfun.com

This post originally appeared on Walk Into My Web
as a guest post. You can check it out here.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

I had been
asking my friend Ankita to write something for my blog for a very long time. On
spending months to come up with an interesting topic, it seems she found
nothing more interesting in the world than me. “Girls” I tell you! So here she’s
written a little piece, which she says had been written for my birthday, which
passed away on the 3rd of November. I’ll take credit for selecting
the picture for the post. That’s me in her arms and she’s making me cut my
birthday cake. *Woof*

Sarthak Ahuja
has been badgering me to write him a guest post since the day I sent him a mail
appreciating his blog (well, the time frame would be an exaggeration. But
anyone who has had the fortune of talking to this lad would know that he can
talk in an hour what Arnab Goswami talks in a year. No kidding). I hate
writing. I started hating it since I was compelled to make stipulated
submissions within a deadline for my college magazine, and the beauty and magic
of inking words into a composition lost its charm. And here I am, attempting to
write something funny. I cannot write anything funny or humorous. So if you
wind up nauseated at the futile effort towards wit by the time you laboriously
reach the end, please kill Sarthak Ahuja.

I came upon this
blog through a friend whose friend is friends with Sarthak. And I liked it so
much that I decided to write him a mail lauding his blog. Actually, the
deceiving header photo which is displayed on the blog was the trigger for this
impulsive action, but we’ll assume for the time being that my interest in the
blog and its author’s writing skills far outweighed my interest in the author,
and me and my roommates swooning over the cute guy did not even list in the
scheme of things considered before shooting the mail (I tell you, the picture
is very, very deceptive). So I sent the mail.

About a zillion
mails and gtalks later, I have qualified enough to blabber away at the
slightest provocation reasons for NOT sending a fan mail to your favourite
blogger. You see, when I first sent the oh-man-you-write-so-well-as-to-dazzle-my-overbearing-stephanian-roomie,
little did I know that the man was as garrulous and over-zealous as Rakhi
Sawant blustering away to glory on the sets of aap ki adaalat (For all that he
knew, I might have been a lunatic stalker with a SSSSSarthak fetish, out to
pester him for the rest of his life until I died a martyr’s death trying to
extricate him from his millionth girlfriend. Indiscreet much, huh?). So
interacting with I-can-even-talk-to-a-lamppost Ahuja has consequently given
rise to many contingencies, the following to name a few (you can add to the
list, of course. Listening about every random dweeb to inhabit this planet can
only cause so many grievances)

A LAPTOP
CLUTTERED WITH PICTURES

The first e-mail
I sent across got in its reply some attached pictures of some random person’s
guinea pig, and in its wake brought along a deluge of pictures with every e-mail.
Some days back, as I casually sifted through the pictures in my laptop, I
realised that I had Sarthak’s girlfriends’ photos, their doggies’ and guinea
pigs’ photos, some pink-coloured piggy-shaped USB photo (why would anybody send
a picture of a USB?), his aquarium’s pictures and some XYZ’s birthday gift’s
photos. And I am not adding to that list the numerous guy pictures he’s sent
across (the prospective boyfriends for the single me) since he was doing me a
favour with that. But the end result was the same- an avalanche of pictures.

I have
reciprocated in kind, though. I didn’t desist from attacking his phone and
mailed him every random picture I could lay my hands on. Prospective ‘4th’
girlfriend for him, some friend’s crush’s photo, roommate’s horrendously
hideous high school photos, I sent them all. Pictures, pictures everywhere…not
one worth glancing at.

EARLY MORNING
CALLS

Now this is
something I hadn’t bargained for. I need 8 hours of sleep, and an early morning
(read 9 O’ clock) call is completely unwarranted. I am still in college, fella,
so please let me fill up my required sleep quota before I am forced to get up
at the ungodly hour of 6 at dawn and slog my way through my sucking future job.
And Sarthak Ahuja has a particular knack for waking you up when you need to
sleep the most- the holidays. You are happily dreaming about your crush taking
you out to some club-cum-restaurant, and then, well, trying to rape you, when
suddenly Sarthak Ahuja- the saviour comes to the rescue with his phone call!
Your dazed mind tries to process the flood of words flowing from the other end,
and by the time you’ve got hold of your bearings, Mr Ahuja has reached his
office and disconnected the call. You’re wide awake now, and no matter how much
you try to regain the lost sleep, it just evades you. Your Nani, who’s been
trying to wake you up for over 2 hours for breakfast, silently thanks the caller
who saved her granddaughter from eternal breakfast-damnation.

RELENTLESS
REQUESTS FOR A GUEST POST

Since July,
Sarthak has been plaguing me to write for his blog. Not a conversation goes
without a subtly brutal reminder of my non-compliance. One blog post…Can’t you write
just one blog post? I have dodged even my mother’s requests for an article on
some outdated and over-discussed economics topic for some outdated magazine,
because I have lost the patience to sit back and write, but Sarthak was
unyielding in his pursuit. Throwing in some feelers that he wrote well and his
blog was popular enough to not need anybody else guest posting didn’t help. His
other nikamme friends gave his
requests a wide berth (very intelligent they are, I must say), but my refusals
always fell on deaf ears. So I finally gave in, and decided to caricature The
Sarthak Ahuja on his own blog.

After reading
this, I don’t think he will ever ask me to write for him again. But if he does
(you thick-skinned Gandhike chele, will you ever give up?), I
know what his blog needs to be adorned with- his I-am-so-cool-yo teenage photos
from Facebook, which look like stills from some Karan Johar movie. Yes, that is
exactly what his blog lacks.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Yo, fellow
Novemba lova’s! It’s now been three days since I’m back from my cousin’s wedding
in Dehradun. It goes without saying that it was a lot of fun. It had to be, as
at no other wedding have I seen the groom blow whistles from on top of the ghodi and make the Titanic pose with the
little kid sitting in front of him on the milky white mare, while the rest of
the baraatis dance to Chikni Chameli
being blared into a microphone by a twenty year old male band-wala. Getting solo pictures of him
clicked for about an hour after the var-maala
ceremony, posing like Yo Yo Honey Singh, our dulha was the true star of the whole wedding. He even shed a few
tears at the time of the bidaai;
probably because we didn’t get “Mele maamu
ki chaadi me jalool jalool aana” on his wedding cards. But all’s well that
ends well.

I
won’t make this a wedding post. There are a lot of fun memories which may then
need to be reported, and I’ll get killed if I tell you about how we stuck
around in the newlywed couple’s room on their first night, demanding a plate
each of bread omlette as treat at 5 in the morning. Equally risky will be
publically mentioning all the innuendos about doodh and badam that were
shamelessly narrated in front of the new bride while she blushed around her
hubby-bubby and saasu-in-law. So, I’ll just take you through some random food
places visited by my good self (yes, sir ji *grins*) on our way to and from the
city of Dehradun.

Baba
Ramdev’s Café, yo!

The
family decided to halt somewhere close to Haridwar in the evening for a cup of chai each, when someone suggested that
we stop at Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ashram and try out the range of exotic jadi-booti wali chai that he has to
offer. In another twenty minutes, our cars drove into the Patanjali Ashram premises.
Even though the baba has done a neat job of lifting design ideas from the
various Iskcon temples across the country, the cafeteria matches his
personality to a tee. There were sweets like amla barfi and lauki barfi
for sale, apart from bhalle-papdi
garnished with kaale channe. Since no
one really had the heart to gorge on food made of pube like herbs, the elders
decided to sip some good ‘ol adrak wali
chai while we kids thought it would be safest to have an ice-cream cone. It
turned out that baba’s staff thinks vanilla is the English for sugar, and we had to lick the off-white cream
for a few minutes till we realized that it was actually batasha flavored. The cones went down the bin, and we washed down
the flavor with a fistful each of aaloo bhujia
that we were smart enough to carry from home. We drove out of the ashram with the elders cursing the baba
for being power hungry, and the kids fantasizing about tricking him into doing aasans that would make him kick his own
butt.

Jain Shikanji Everywhere!

If
you’ve been to Haridwar, Rishikesh or Mussoorie by road, I’m sure you’ve seen
huge boards of Jain Shikanji adorning the highway for a stretch of about ten kilometers
after crossing Meerut. Jain Shikanji has been around since the time my dad used
to visit the abovementioned places with his cousins as a kid. There has never
been a trip to Rishikesh when we haven’t stopped at this shikanji stall for a glass of chilled lemon masala soda. Except this time, the elders were in too much of a
rush to reach the wedding town to even care to slow down in front of the
shikanji stall and naino mein basaao
the uncle ji whose photo is the
business’ famous trademark. There are a couple of fake Jain Shikanji stalls
too, but you’ll know the original one by recognizing the photo of Jain Shikanji
Uncle who has full hair, a neat Premchand mustache, and a face that makes you
wonder whether he is smiling or has been blessed with looks like that.

There
was no shikanji break for us this
time, but if you ever take the same route, stop for two glasses of shikanji with a plate of paneer pakoda. My treat.

Cheetal
Grand and Moolchand

Cheetal
and Moolchand are two places you can stop at for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
They’re mini resorts trying hard to look like a Haldiram’s with hotel rooms,
and have actually done a better job at it than the real Haldiram. Cheetal has a
fancy bird zoo where you’ll often find roosters engaged in hilariously amusing crowing
competitions. But I’m no fan of caging pretty birds, so Moolchand ranks no lower
in my list despite being a little less popular than the former. The gardens at
both these places are really well maintained, with flowers gyrating like in a
Rajesh Khanna movie to show a kiss. The staff is way more welcoming than the
half pundits we met at Patanjali. Drop at Cheetal for a meal on your way up,
and try Moolchand on your way back. Ek
trip pe do nishaane, yo!

Vishal
Dhaba, Oodi Baba!

There
has never been a trip to Rishikesh when we haven’t had at least one meal at the
famous Chotiwala Restaurant, which is a five minute walk from the bathing
ghats. But on our last trip, we were very disappointed with the quality of food
served at both the adjoining Chotiwala’s owned by the two brothers who
inherited half each of the original restaurant property. I also realized that I
love food more than the sight of a fat, pink colored, glitter covered man with
a pony tail sitting outside an eating joint, inviting people to walk in by
constantly ringing a mandir ki ghanti.
So this time, we did a bit of asking around to find the best eating place in
Rishikesh, and I can bet your first girlfriend’s
virginity that you cannot find a better eating place in the whole city than
Vishal Dhaba.

Vishal
Dhaba is on the side of the Ganges opposite to Chotiwala. We ordered handis full of Paneer Butter Masala,
Channa Masala and Kadhi Pakoda and the taste of the food made us all have twice
the number of chapattis that we
normally have. Huge thalis were given
to us for pouring generous servings of the dishes into. The kheer that followed tasted more like a royal
preparation of rabri. The food made
us so happy that we refused to leave the dhaba
till the cook also made a special cup of chai
for all of us, thus keeping the dhaba
open for an hour more than its closing time.

Chuck
rafting; my next trip to Rishikesh will be solely dedicated to Vishal Dhaba.
And you must accompany me to experience food orgasm! *Ooh, Aah, Burp*

You
may also try the poori-sabzi that
they sell at Geeta Ashram. It’s very hygienically prepared and is priced at Mc
Donald’s ki advert wale zamaane ke daam. And, oh, you can
tell me about some nice eating places that you know of on the same route. I’ll
probably be making a trip again soon. :)

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

It’s
been a while since I saw your goggles covered eyes pan across my television
screen. It’s not something that I terribly miss, really. But, it’s been a while
since the Khalsa College staff let a Sardar walk around their campus with a
ponytail. It’s been a while since I saw a Sikh puttar not look like he had Butter Chicken leg pieces stuffed up
his biceps; and it’s really been a while since I saw people dancing to a
Punjabi song that does not feature Yo Yo Honey Singh. That’s reason to come
back.

Don’t
you think it’s about time that you came out with another video, showing these
elitist Delhi University dumbfrigs that not every dude who wears shades in the
dark is an Orkutiya? Going by your history, we know that you’ve grown up in
Kenya and have spent a significant part of your life talking about how you’re
one of the first Punjabi singers from the UK. That gives you a lot of
credibility when it comes to fashion. If the cut Surds in India needed the
official licensing from UK based desi pop stars like Taz and Jazzy B to spike
up their hair and feel cool about it, you’re someone who defined a distinctive
style for our Sikh friends who chose to stick to their religious beliefs and
not sacrifice their hair at the risk of looking like a “murga” as the elders in my family put it. What made you score
additional points is that you really didn’t feel like giving a shit to coming
up with a name that would help you sell your albums based on how many times you
place the letter “Z” in your name. *appreciative nod* That’s reason to come
back.

I’m
not bored of dance steps that are suggestive of counting stars in the memory of
a lover. Neither do I mind singing along to lyrics that talk of boys driving
cars while girls walk down the road. Ah, that is another fantasy, considering
I’m driven around to places by my lady friends due to my lack of driving
practice. I still dance just as much to your songs as I did at my uncle’s
wedding way back when I was eight. The way I move my body hasn’t improved much
since then, but I love how you make me not look like a bad dancer by making
everyone else at the party just point up to the sky and jump to “ishq tera tadpaave”. That’s reason to
come back.

As I
read through your wiki page, I realize that you’re not too far away from my
dad’s age. You probably have kids by now. I said probably ‘cuz you know, it
must’ve been a hard task trying to figure out where you’re aiming at in the
dark with those shades on. My sympathies. But it’s hard for me to imagine you
looking way past forty. Look at Mayur and Rocky from Highway on my plate, for
example. How different can a pony and a pair of glasses (tinted in your case)
make you look if you’ve been sporting them since your first appearance on TV
about two decades back? I will totally refuse to believe someone who tells me
that you’ve sprouted some hair around your cheek bones or have got bi-focal
lenses for the gogs. You’re like a male equivalent of Rekha in my head, with
equally beautiful hair, and no, you’re not allowed to age. Give me a chance to
show a latest video of you to my dad and make him realize that he needs to do
something to stay fit. That’s reason to come back.

Every
Punjabi song that I listen to these days talks of girls wearing Prada or Gucci
and drinking neat shots of vodka without even a drop of Limca. What follows are
orgasmic sounds calling out to the Almighty. My dadi, even though being a Punjabi, gets lost in the sound of the
beats and asks me to slowly recite the lyrics for her. It’s been a while since
I’ve spoken out the words of a song in front of her. It’s really been a while.
Come, be a good boy, and let the old lady enjoy some music that reminds her of
days when her husband would count stars and cry for not having met her for a
day. You’ll get aashirwad, you know.
That’s reason to come back.

I
don’t miss your music too much. I don’t ‘cuz I’m still not over it. It still
makes me lip sync along in the Delhi Metro and look like a retard while on my
way to the office every morning. You’re still there on my playlist, while
others stick around for just a month or two. But I wouldn’t mind you flooding
my playlist with beats that make me break my silence through plugged in ear
phones and shout “Bruaah!” at the
fellow passengers every once in a while. That’ll probably be a little
embarrassing. But, that’s reason enough to come back.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Cars
enter the gates of Gurgaon city guarded by mechanical toll booths that silently
mimic a “Hail Mogambo” and raise their arms with a beep to welcome all those
who have chosen, or rather been chosen to serve the half-foreign ruler of the
town. The skyline, marked by western design inspired buildings, brings the
uncanny blond color to the king’s mane. The king taps his fingers on an
upturned bowl of light and talks in a tone that is Indian enough to recognize itself
with Amrish Puri. His appearance shows that he is evidently not of an Indian
origin. The golden in his hair and the gold on his coat conceal his real
identity from the city that marks his kingdom. But, his voice is a strong
mixture of Indian dialects, and why shouldn’t it be? An ethnic mix of Indians is
what breathes life into this city that wears a façade of greenhouses branded by
multi-national corporations.

We
all serve the king, and express joy on having made it to his army that moves on
a conveyor from Sikanderpur to HUDA City Center. The cogs slide along metal
tracks and push members of the infantry at their allocated work areas, to
either screw pieces together or hold things in place by being pieces themselves.
The flash of a Metro card beeps in tune with a hundred other beeps that mark
entry time at an adjoining building. Business cards get exchanged in thousands,
giving clear tool usage instructions that we also wear as thin pieces of
plastic hanging by our necks.

It’s
not just the mechanical sounds that drive us to this kingdom. The colorful
attire of our lead actress, who stands tall, wearing shreds of white, red, pink
and blue, is another feature that draws us to the sub-urb, where she lives up
to her “hawa-hawaii” image by anglicizing
her name to Air-tel. With dreams to woo her and move from one step on the
ladder to another, we march to the kingdom; the kingdom of dreams.

A
part of the machinery, we all, are little heroes marching to save the world; a
world that comprises three inhabitants on the 4th floor of an
apartment building post 9 p.m. We are saviors of our little lives that are
cloned by the king in his massive factories made of glass. We are heroes; the
Mr. India’s who are bound by the ticking of the three needles on our wrist
bands, which will one day make us invisible. The needles tick through the day,
working their magic spells to grant us the power of invisibility, and in a
matter of weeks, we stand in the middle of a crowd, crying over our
invisibility.

Invisibility,
we thought, was synonymous with invincibility, but it didn’t turn out the way expected.
Sifting through pieces of glass, we then work towards finding the one that
would turn us into visible beings; finding ways to stand out in the crowd, even
if through a glass stained with red. It’s funny; life in the city of Gurgaon. The
power of the wrist band ticks over the pulse of our heroes, but Mogambo still
expresses his happiness unperturbed, "Mogambo khush hua!"

Monday, September 24, 2012

The
monsoon made its appearance late this year, just like all our clients who realize
as soon as September approaches that a trip to their auditors and chartered
accountants is overdue. They ruin our Sundays and make us lose our mental
balance over balancing their balance sheets. Such is life, but I’m not
complaining.

Another
quarter of a year ends in one week, and here’s a little update on what life
lessons in skin show I have learnt during the last three months.

Lots of Skin Contact Yo!

July
started with a mission to do something that would keep my posterior to look
like less of a shock absorber. Swimming had always been one of my favorite
forms of exercise, and I had maintained a safe distance from the pool since my
body sprouted a bit too much of homo-sapient vegetation. But I gathered the
courage to strip in front of at least a hundred people, and signed up for a
swimming subscription at the pool.

The
pool that I go to is no ordinary swimming pool, mind you. It’s the place where
our Dilli hosted all aquatic events during
the Commonwealth Games. It’s a place which makes you feel that Mr. Kalmadi has
actually put his soul into the Commonwealth project. I mean, how else would
just entering the vicinity of something CWG make one strip oneself of all shame
and expose one’s mammaries to the gleaming water.

Getting
back to swimming has taught me a few lessons. The most touching, literally, is
to never be embarrassed of male boobs. These three months have been full of
naked men bumping into each other in a huge tub of water, and the sight of water
dripping down from pointy nipples on sagging male boobs. It’s made me realize that
water does bring out the feminine side in a man. Proof being that during all
the talk in the locker room, no one has complained of a salute by his manliness
inside the water. And, silently, every man compares his boobs to another’s.
What’s ironic, though, is the maxim: smaller the better. There are also tan
lines on my feet from wearing chappals
to the pool. The fair V-shape from the straps makes my bare feet look like they’ve
been wearing a kinky thong to the beach the whole summer. There’s not too much
hair on the toes, so the need for a bikini wax hasn’t arisen. The pool has also
sound proofed all the manly farts. Now, we can fart in the water to our heart’s
fart’s content. Just be careful to not let anyone notice the bubbles.

If That Much Skin Wasn’t Enough

It
saddens me to see how people fall for looks and do not care to appreciate some
really good qualities about people around us. Why else would people praise the
cow and get disgusted by the buffalo? The latter gives more milk! So, to free
myself from the clutches of vanity and show my receding hairline that I do not
give an ounce of fecal matter, I decided to get my hair buzzed. Buzzed as in, -next
to bald- buzzed.

The
mother welcomed my new look in the house with a: “You dare not enter my house
looking like that”, while the sister exclaimed: “Get in fast and better not step
out of the house. I’d die before my friends see you like that.”

I
have spent the last three months looking ugly as frig, dealing with convincing
myself that Akshay Khanna looks good enough to do better than Tara Sharma. I
did get a little more attention though. Some friends were jealous, and wished
to experience the joy of a hot shower pattering on the skull; while most could
not stop themselves from feeling the fuzz in my buzz. Some well mannered ones
would ask if they could rub their hands on my head. And, I always obliged. But,
shameless were the clients, who even thought it was acceptable to take
permission to touch it, and then touched it before I could say no. I am a
friendly person to deal with that way. Yeah, that sounds like a good enough explanation.
Believable?

I
was going for a buzz every fortnight, and then, like a melodrama loving Hindi
soap bahu, the mother gave me a kasam not to get my hair cut before my
cousin’s wedding in late October. I wonder why she wants me to get some female
attention at the shaadi. She’s pretty
much always hated my lady friends. But, kasam
toh kha li hai! I’m on a hair growing spree now. And, all parties seem to
fall during this chhakka phase when
the hair is neither idhar ka nor udhar ka.

My
swimming subscription ends with this month, and I’m in two minds about renewing
it because it’s too much of a pain to wake up so early in the morning. The hair
has grown to a decent enough length, and looks ugly only when I skype. The skin
show has been fun, but will soon come to an end. I’m happy though, and so is
the mother. I deserve a jalebi, if
not more. Don't you think? *chomp*

Monday, September 3, 2012

As one of them opens the door to let the others, who form another generation of a family, walk inside the house, there’s no more a welcoming smile on that aged face. The steps silently trod back into a room where a little mandir is the most beloved adornment. The smiles that used to open the door till a decade ago were of their children, who would wait for the bread earners to get back home from a hard day’s work and relax between four distemper coated walls. The walls now boast of expensive wallpapers and imported art work, but the warmth remains missing. Roles have been swapped. The children seem to have grown into responsible adults, who wear ties and drive sedans to work; while the experienced try hard to camouflage themselves in the discomfort of Persian rugs over Italian marble.

What is looked forward to through the years of toil is a smile that depicts fulfillment of all responsibilities. Monthly savings went into school fees; annual savings went into an engineering admission; savings through five years went into buying the first scooter; and savings through all those years since a daughter was born into the house till she completed her post graduation went into making her future-in-laws smile through a lavish wedding. The saviors of the household are still saviors. They sit through the day, inspecting the maid wiping the floor through an open door from their bedroom. And when the others leave for work, they sit silently, counting beads through a prayer of keeping the family members safe and sound. It is a relaxed life. They get food at fixed times, and there are no lessons that they have to sit through to make their children learn for a class test. The children know beyond what they believe they have gathered in their years of experience. It’s a thought to celebrate, isn’t it? It’s a joy of relief to see their children fare better than themselves. But, they wonder what keeps them waiting for a smile to come and spread elegance over their wrinkles.

The shoulders that once seated a son through a pilgrimage uphill now droop under the spell of a heavy age. The skin that once cooled itself down during a weekly television program with the family now resembles the layer of wrinkle skimmed off the surface of hot tea prepared in an Indian kitchen, which gently rests over the brim of a china cup. It rests there in peace, wondering if it belongs inside the cup or its use to the world is as much as its weight on the cusp. The eyes have seen a near one passing away into the land of another birth, and another coming into a fresh life in tender arms. The sorrows, the joys: the eyes have seen all that defines the need for a bifocal lens. The hair has thinned over the years, reminding them that everything that once formed a part of their body, including their children, will one day move away.

The children touch their feet before they leave for work every morning; they bring a watch and a warm drape on their parents’ 50th marriage anniversary. The even littler ones, the grandchildren, eat a handful of food offered to the almighty from their grandparents’ hands. These are kids that their parents are proud of; they bring laurels to the family. But, the gifted watch still reminds the wise of the seconds, minutes and hours they will have to spend on another day, waiting for their children to come home in time for dinner.

As work colleagues fade into a cloud of blur in five years, the group at the local garden shares a few laughs. In another half a decade, the laughs are replaced by smiles at a religious meet at the local temple, giving hints of the literal shortening of the social circle radius. Slowly, siblings either pass into another world or eagerly wait for another life to breathe life into them.

Experience comes with age. It comes as fast as the vigor of youth, through youth and through life’s second stage. And as the third stage approaches, it drags slowly with each tick of a clock’s cogs. It’s funny how life changes its pace. It rushes through work, through health, through family ties in the ripeness of its age. And when it’s time to taste the pulp that one has borne under one’s ever-changing skin, the weight is too much for the stem to bear.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

It’s
the 29th of August already. Despite having written a post on this
blog around 12 days back, the pressure of writing a piece every two weeks
builds up like the burden of getting a 26 year old daughter married as soon as
the end of the month deadline approaches near. With my enthusiasm levels at the
lowest on a scale from Alok Nath to Prabhu Deva, I sit down to type another
piece and fulfill my bi-monthly duties.

In
recent news, I have passed the set of CWA papers I gave in June this year. A
little party to celebrate the same is yet to be planned, but I thought it’s
just to let my taste-buds engage in some foreplay with sugary somethings from
the local grocery store. A trip down to the local sardarji uncle’s shop ended with a small purchase of a Cadbury’s
5-Star. Even though my body got enough calories to last a 30 second orgasm, my
tongue was left with a longing for an old lover. It’s depressing how in spite
of the rise in per capita disposable income in the Indian economy over the past
one decade, the sweets and confectionery market has plummeted to the level of offering
kids with products wearing taglines like “do
rupaye mein do laddoo”. It’s sad how today’s children don’t even know about
the wonders that were “Pan Pasand” and “Ravalgaon sugar boiled candies”. To
commemorate some unsung heroes from the time when icing on the cake meant white
cream topped with a little pineapple piece, I bring to you a list of some
candies that my tongue still identifies as its childhood best friends.

Swad

This,
my friend, is the grand-daddy of all digestive “tablets” in the world! Swad has
always been one of my favorite candies of all time, and therefore, deserves no
lesser than the first spot on this list. An elder cousin of Hajmola candy, Swad
brought with itself a sense of Indian-ness that Hajmola candy can never match.
The silver packet bordered with a checkered brown pattern was Madhubala, if
Hajmola’s pink or green wrapper was Preity Zinta. It had a taste stronger than
all the other digestive candies of its generation, and was loved by my dadaji and me alike.

Swad
not just made my gall bladder wet with excitement, but also gave Pooja Bhatt an
opportunity to star in a TV commercial, thus keeping her mind off movie scripts
that involve people like Emraan Hashmi rubbing their sand-paper on half naked
ladies.

Swad
has slowly been left alone by its grand-children who are too busy selling
tattoos under their skins, housed in fancy jars that adorn the shelves of a
local grocer. Has it died a silent death? I guess not. It may still be fighting
the last few months of its existence in a remote village, near its manufacturer’s
factory.

Fatafat/Chatmola

From
a big piece of candied jal-jeera
called Swad, to little pellets of gastrous joy, our markets used to be full of orange
packets with black polka dots that sprawled across the local shop entrance like
prayer flags at a Tibetan monastery. Fatafat was my small packet of happiness,
the digestive qualities of which my innocent brain did not care for. My love
for Fatafat was selfless. I would pop one pellet at a time, never all at once,
and relish the tangy flavor slowly. It was Fatafat that introduced me to the
usage of “khatta” with “kaala”.

Another
variant of packed digestive pills was Chatmola that sold in a yellow and red
wrapper. Everyone’s favorite “Appu the elephant” adorned the front of its
wrapper and made the kids jump with joy.

I
still manage to spot Fatafat at a store or two, but Chatmola is no longer a
survivor in the market. If you were to get me a nice birthday present, please
pick up some packets of Fatafat. Phir
treat pakki!

Ravalgaon Candy

Ravalgaon
candies were India’s answer to Fox’s. Its transparent cover was the first to
teach me that these sweets are “sugar-boiled”. They are available in a variety
of colors like yellow, red and orange. My favorite among them used to be the
orange; I think because that was the only flavor I could identify. There’s one
with a blue cover too, but I've never been able to tell the difference between the tastes
of the blue one from the yellow.

Pan
Pasand and Mango Mood were other offerings from Ravalgaon, and ranked higher in
my list as compared to their competing products by Nutrine and Parry’s. They
still sell in the market, but face stiff competition from Cadbury’s and Parle.
The multinationals may be doing a good job at marketing their products, but
their products can never match the panache with which Ravalgaon candies shower
with a bang from a balloon over a young boy's birthday cake.

Phantom Cigarettes

I
remember the red pack of cigarettes that would open up to 10 sticks of sugar
colored in red at one end. Phantom Cigarettes were peppermint flavored candies
that were not minty enough to attract girls off Close-up billboards, but still macho
enough to make little boys believe that they had a chance with.. um, Minnie
Mouse?

I
remember one of my cousins buying me a pack of these “cigarettes” on a trip to
the market close to my aunt’s house. We loved its taste, and the novelty
quotient it sold on, but I cannot forget how disapproving my parents were of
the so called candy. So, my experience of machofying myself with a Phantom in
my mouth was short-lived, but I think I wouldn’t mind seeing it in the market
again. Or maybe I will. It’ll have a bad effect on the psyche of kids.

Shit,
have I really grown that old!

Kismi Bar

Parle’s
Kismi Bar was an inexpensive substitute to a chocolate. I believe it tasted of
cardamom, and was more of a “toffee” flattened out into the shape of a bar. For
about a rupee or two for a bar, it was a good option during times of sudden
sugar cravings.

The
red cover of the product displayed a silhouette of a suited man being kissed by
a beautiful lady. What makes me call her “beautiful” is probably the fact that
her shape was colored in white, in contrast to the man, who was a shadow of
black. Go ahead and judge the shameless racist in me if you want to. I come
from the land of Kismi, where cows are considered holier than the ride of
Yamraj, the buffalo.

Jelly Belly

If
you ask my parents about my favorite dish as a kid, I bet the pack of Brown
& Polson custard powder in my kitchen that they will say “jelly”. A
die-hard. No, a die-jiggly jelly fan, as a six year old, I would demand jelly
be made in our kitchen every single day of the week.

To
save her the pain of making jelly every day, my bua would get me a pack of Jelly Belly from her way back home after
office every evening. I would tear off the plastic cover and suck the whole
jelly off the cup in an instant. Candle-shaped jelly sticks were soon a rage
with the other kids in my colony, but my loyalty remained towards the Rex Jelly
that was shelved in our kitchen or the little shivering shots of “Jelly Belly”.

Most
of these much loved sweets are no longer seen. I miss them. Yes, I do. But for
me, there’s always a bit of fresh Jalebi to love. Happy Sweet-toothing.

Friday, August 17, 2012

10. You can apply for your own credit card, with your name printed on it. Oooh! And you can give your best photograph for it. No more driver's license kinda photos on cool id's.

9. You'll feel so good to have earned enough during the year to fall into the tax brackets. Warren Buffet in the making, eh?

8. You'll contribute a sum for the development of the nation. Jai Hind.

7. You'll declare your income and make your money white. While Dawood Ibrahim has to deal in drugs, invest in Bollywood and buy properties in Monica Bedi-esque women's names to make his black money milky-milky white, you just have to file an income tax return.

6. Your employers deducted some tax from your salary. Those bloody law abiders! It's time to see if you can claim some tax refund from the TDS.

5. Letting me e-file your IT Return will avoid the whole nonsense of bribing Income Tax officials. You'll feel cool like ACP Pradyuman, or Barney Stinson for having eff'd the IT clerk's dream of little Gandhiji's dancing to "paisa paisa kardi hai" in his drawer.

4. If you're too busy, just email me the details, while you're at your work desk, or sitting in the loo, trying to poop and simultaneously emailing on your smartphone.

3. Paying my nominal fee will feel like paying for a stand up comedy session. I assure you of full entertainment, sir.

2. We'll not just drink coffee together, but I'll also make you have really cool iced tea. Choose from mint, peach and lemon. Or have all 3.

1. We'll get to meet each other. It's been a long long time. Let's catch up on all the latest news, make fun of our ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, finish every sentence with ''that's what she said'', make prank calls and live it like the old times.

So you see, this is not just an excuse for me to throw a ''coffee, tea or me'' at you. It's ''Income Tax Return, coffee, tea AND me.''

Friday, August 10, 2012

As
the world approaches a much talked about end in another few months, it’s good
to see that humankind is beginning to accept what fate holds for us all.
Instead of building modern versions of Noah’s Arks with billion dollar seats to
help the wealthy sail through the impending washout, we are all getting
together and enjoying the last few days of the world as we know it. A thought
binds us close. While the virgins look for ways to bang a thang before the
apocalypse, the experienced go berserk on the internet and substitute periods
with #YOLO. The beautiful epiphany of only getting to live once has given us a
reason to come up with another viral acronym. Ladies and gentlemen, to give it to you in a nutshell, “You Only Live Once”. Wow! Now let’s all shout YOLO.

It
took me months to figure out what LOL meant when it hit cyberspace in my early
social networking days of hi5.com. OMG was acceptable, and so were Bebo and
Lolo. But, let’s not turn everyone into the Kapoor sisters by giving a grand welcome
to “Yolo”.

I
see my twitter feed full of YOLO hashtags, and it’s permeating to facebook,
too. It’s not surprising that Americans with an IQ equal to the number of
thumbs on Hrithik Roshan’s hands are so thrilled with the whole idea of getting
to live only once. But what raises great concern is how we Indians, who feed on
shows like Raaz Pichhle Janam Ka on
the most popular television channel in the country, are blindly falling for such
buffalo dump. Let’s not forget that we are “karma-yogis”.
We believe in the cycle of life after death. We strongly hold on to the belief,
nay, -fact- that whatever we sow, we will also reap. If not in this birth, then
till the reaping burns us out of the shackles of life and death.

In
my attempt to keep us in touch with our unquestionable beliefs, I bring to you versions
of YOLO that connect with our souls. Ooh, deep! Since charity starts at home,
here’s defining YOLO for the average Delhiite.

YO’ Lusty Organ

Since
the early ‘90s, we Delhiites have given a whole new meaning to the word organ.
The evolution is noteworthy. There was a time when Shahrukh Khan would blow on
a mouth organ, ride his red bike and sing a song in Kumar Sanu’s voice in every
second movie. And today, I realize how my mum was correct when she said that Bollywood
stars have short-lived eras of stardom on the big screen. We have easily replaced
Shahrukh Khan with every woman on the road. Taking them on “rides” and making
them “blow” organs is no longer a fantasy that makes people among us play
rocket-rocket in the privacy of their bathrooms. They no longer need practice
runs. The brilliant show that they put up makes us all read the following day’s
newspaper and say that we want to clap our hands on their faces. But we go and
clasp another woman the same day. Darn, the YOLOness!

There
are others who claim to treat women with respect. They touch their elders’
feet, drink milk every day, and make a trip to the colony temple every Tuesday.
They’re the good boys. Good Delhi boys, with a wonderful vocabulary of words
that define making love to the female members of every animate and inanimate
object's next of kin. Keeping their swords in the sheath, they claim to make babies with the
mother and sister of everything that falls within a radius of two-fifty yards.

“Yeh burger ******** itna chhota hai!”

“Yeh ******** red light kabhi green milti hi
nahi.”

“Saale, likh likh ke exam mein mere haathon
ki ** **** gayi!”

That’s
exactly the reason why we believe that HT City offers better literature than a
book telling us a story of a small boy being raped in an Arab location. Having
received our doctorates in the art of raping, stories of kite runners seem passé.
We claim to do every piece of furniture, every article of stationery, and every
item of food a hundred times every single day. That’s a YOLO worthy achievement,
don’t you think?

Yaar, One Large Oye!

From
the size of one’s car to the size of another’s Sainik Vihar farmhouse, we Delhiites
love measuring things with not a span or a cubit, but with eyes so wide that
put our inflated scrota to shame.

Let’s
put two big hands together for our city, which has made the statement “Tu jaanta nahi mera baap kaun hai” used enough number of times to be Guinness
worthy. Let’s also take this opportunity to congratulate the average Delhiite
who has excelled in the field of mathematics by proving that the number of
relatives one has is directly proportional to the number of digits in one’s
bank/under-the-table account.

With
posters of Royal Stag forcing us to question if we have made it large enough to
be called a Patiala peg, we fear being hungover the following morning, and dig
into a plate of chhole bhature cooked
in shudhdesi ghee. Our diet shows that we’re obsessed with food that’s big;
or food that’s cooked in pomace olive oil. Either way, we won’t stop ourselves
from mentioning at every occasion that even the aaloo keparanthe at our
place are sautéed in the literally “rich” olive oil. That speaks a lot about
mine, and Your Obsessive Love for Oil.
Another YOLO defining moment? I bet, saadi
Dilli.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

They
are all around us. The relation we share with them is like the one we have with
the pigeons. The pigeons that silently walk into our rooms whenever we open the
doors to our balconies. They look endearing at times, with the queer pink and
green gently merging into a shiny coat around their necks. They’re different
than the others, with those two pellets of homeopathic medicine craftily attached to the top of their beaks. Their B-boying necks and throaty
coos remind us of some of our childhood’s favorite rap-stars. And at other
times, when we get over thinking about things from the past during our study
time on our cozy beds, their coos sound jarring. We get up and run towards
them, making them fly into the open skies, from which they return and paint our
clothes with a mix of white and green. These pigeons; we hate them for the crap
they stain our clothes with. Well, they’re too harmless to hate otherwise. So,
we just scrape away all the old shit and wear the stains that they design for
us on every random day. We don’t know if we’d miss them if they go. We don’t
know if they’re too adorable or too annoying. They’re just there. And no matter
how high a floor you climb, they’ll be there to stay. The pigeons; and the all
girls’ school women.

I’m
surrounded literally by more number of girls from all girls’ schools than Baba
Ramdev is by shamelessly black chest hair. Answering why is a
mystery unsolved. My sister is from a girls’ school, but that’s not to blame.
Maybe it’s just the radar built in me by years of all boys’ schooling that
poings, tings and buzzes with excitement on meeting others from the opposite
sex, who have been schooled in the same way, and.. are equally lame?

My
experience of being friends with girls from all girls’ schools pokes me from
within. It reaches out to my soul, asking me to tell you about why or why not to
befriend such girls. Words of wisdom follow. Please read in case of sheer
boredom, or go befriend one of these girls anyway.

The Pros

Bhaisaab, Contacts:

The
first lesson you need to learn is that you don’t just become friends with a
girl from an all girls’ school; you become friends with her whole gang! These
girls will not just talk about themselves like princesses, but will introduce
you to every part of their being. They don’t hold friends close enough to call
them BFFs, but they hold them so close that they all become a part of one
living body and soul. Since the first movie that they saw taught them that a
guy has to accept the whole package that they have to offer, you meet and
befriend all those living and moving body parts that complete one such girl. You
don’t just go for a lunch with her. You go for a lunch where you bump into the
whole population of her school waving and awwing from all directions. She
introduces you to at least three girls from every course and college in the
university. Phone directory count exceeds three hundred. Bhaisaab, contacts!

Popularity, Sir ji:

Being
immensely driven by emotions, girls from an all girls’ school will never just
“not care”. They’ll either loathe you to the minutest atom of your pubes or
adore you to the Johnsons baby pores of your butt cheeks. Either way, she’ll
mention how much she hates/loves you to every person she messages, BBM and
Skypes with. Which means a sixty-four hunded hits on your facebook profile a
day, and friend requests from sixty-nine girls with Instagrammed profile
pictures of pouts and glares. You’ll have the women whom she called “bi*ches”
in school wanting to date you, and then her wanting to date you, too. So much
popularity, sir ji! Kyunki nafrat ko
pyaar mein badalte der nahi lagti!

Casanova, Kya Baat Hai:

Since
this is far from the screenplay of Inception, it doesn’t take the brains
equivalent of Rakesh Roshan’s forehead to understand where things are going to
go. These girls’ obsession with Harry Potter, fancy stationery items and
facebook photos drags you into a routine of uploading photos with your new girl
pals on facebook every day. You forget that you have friends from school. You
just pose like Ravan between nine feminine heads and feel awesome for not
desiring any of god’s other ladies. Your swagger matches that of Akshay Kumar
from Desi Boyz and whatever you mumble sounds like: “I’m like the Casanova of
India, biyatch!” When your friends start commenting on your pictures, saying
things like “ladies’ man”, you just say “Arrey,
kahan!” and raise your hands in the air like Shahrukh Khan.

1, 2, 3, Girlfriend:

The
beauty of the girl from an all girls’ school lies in the fact that she won’t
even make you realize when and how you got into a relationship with her. Every
time that someone asks you about how you started liking her will not just make
you defy gravity with your arms, but also say words like: “Pyaar kiya nahi jaata, ho jaata hai.” So for all those lonely boys
who wish to drown in the feeling of love before they hit the age of puberty,
you know which schools’ conti passes to buy. Getting yourself a girlfriend from
an all girls’ school is as easy as making Mahesh Manjrekar look stoned. Trust
my loserness. All my ex-girlfriends have been from girls’ schools. Macho me,
babbeh!

The Cons

Emotional Jwalamukhis:

There’s
only a little science that goes into knowing how all girls’ school women act
like after they trap you in a relationship. While the product life cycle curve
rises to the peak and starts to decline after reaching the point of maturity, you
should get yourself to reconcile with reality and accept that your love life is
lightyears away from maturity, but declines nevertheless. Blame it not just on
half the city’s involvement with your relationship but also on the
unstable-estrogen-itis that your better half suffers from due to excessive
exposure to nuns, BFFing and weekly night stays. You realize that in your case,
the P in PMS stands for Perpetual. One day you make out like oldies sucking on
lollypops and the other day you break up because, well, no one knows. I guess
that’s why they say: No pain, no gain. So, leave behind easy peasy relationship
starters, make some effort, go crazy trying to impress a girl for a year, and
then finally land yourself with a girl from a co-ed background.

Relations:

Beware.
You’ll be jokingly adopted as a father, son, brother, or even a mother-in-law
as soon as you make yourself a part of such a girl gang. It’s funny at first.
Not! You realize the pain only after breaking up with your girlfriend, when you
have to untag all her friends as aunt, mother, daddy, daughter, etc. from your
facebook profile. You thought not listing your ex as your girlfriend on
facebook was mature? Boo-yeah!

Ruins Your Chances with Your Ex’s Hot Best
Friend:

Remember,
every single time that you get into a relationship with a girl gang girl, you’ll
somehow be tricked to falling in love with the second best of the lot. It doesn’t
matter at first. You’re too much in love. Now, aww at yourself and shut up.
Because just seven hours after your break up, you’ll realize that you’ve lost
your chance with your ex’s best friend. She used to be the one who’d tell your
ex that she has the most amazing boyfriend in the world, but tera toh cut gaya, maamu! No point in
trying to relive memories of eyeing her best friend at the casual lunch you
guys had at Khan Market one day. The best friend is just like a warranty card
you get with your phone. You feel great having her around, thinking that you
might get a shot with her some day. But, the day your phone breaks and you read
the conditions on your card, you realize that the warranty doesn’t cover your
loss.

Turns You Into One of Them:

You
don’t just befriend a girl from an all girls’ school and live in peace. You’ll
have to become an important member of her gang, win all her friends’ hearts,
get into a relationship with her, get exposed to emotional imbalances, break
up, lose your chances with her best friend.. And then move on by dating another
girl from a girls’ school. It’s a vicious cycle. You lose the charm that impresses
women from co-ed backgrounds. It doesn’t take long for you to realize that you’ve
started behaving just like your ex. You
refer to some of the girls from her school as bi*ches, calling some other your
bros/sisters, being invited to all of their girl parties.. And not too far away
in the future, everyone on your facebook friend list realizes that you don’t
have a shot with any of the girls you’re posing with in your latest DP. KLPD.

So,
they’re like the pigeons, you see. Love them, hate them; you can’t get rid of
them. They’re too important a part of your life.

P.S.
Trust me when I say that Bollywood has a song for every situation. The mixed
feeling of love, and desire for separation with a creature worth adoring: “Kabootar Ja Ja Ja.” Wah wah!